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Senior military officer in Northern Territory court over child porn

Neda Vanovac

Lawyers for a Jakarta-based senior Australian military officer accused of child porn offences say police lied to him and his wife in order to conduct searches without a warrant.

The man, who cannot be named, was attached to the Australian embassy in Jakarta.

He has been charged with 11 counts of producing child abuse material and three counts of possession. Some of the material allegedly depicts children he knows.

Police did not request their Indonesian counterparts to search the man’s Jakarta home in order to avoid a diplomatic drama, his lawyer Jack Pappas said at a committal hearing in Darwin on Tuesday.

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‘‘You would rather have him prosecuted here without all the ugly publicity that would accompany [the case] overseas,’’ he told Australian Federal Police Officer Peter Mellor.

Officer Mellor replied, ‘‘That was a concern.’’

He conceded that it is more difficult to obtain a search warrant from Indonesian authorities than from Australian authorities, but denied this was why the AFP had waited for the man to return to Darwin before searching his house and approaching him.

The AFP told Indonesian authorities only that they were carrying out policing work in Jakarta but not that they were going to search the man’s house, the court heard.

Detective Superintendent Sandra Booth said the offences had been committed in Australia and the suspect had been in Australia at the time of the search, and Indonesian police had no jurisdiction over the case.

‘‘We believed the best way to speak to the family was to have a conversation and talk about a consensual search process which was fully informed,’’ she told the court.

Police waited until the man was in Australia and then went to his home, telling his wife they were investigating child abuse material that was downloaded to an IP address allocated to the family’s home in Canberra, but said it had nothing to do with the man or any member of his family.

‘‘That was a lie, wasn’t it?’’ Mr Pappas said.

Mr Mellor denied this, saying the man had not yet been a suspect.

‘‘If a person is misled, their consent is not worth tuppence,’’ Mr Pappas said.

While the man’s Jakarta home was being searched with the consent of his wife, officers were waiting outside his Darwin hotel without a warrant, and approached him to talk without appropriate cautions.

He spoke to police and allowed them to examine his computer, admitting it contained adult pornography, before Mr Mellor cautioned him.

The committal trial continues. His wife sat beside him holding his hand throughout proceedings.